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VANGUARD
D/INDEPENDENT
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Jonathan And Obasanjo Feud - Implications For 2015
_________________________________________________________
By Theophilus Ilevbare
Sunday, Jan 13, 2012
Sunday, Jan 13, 2012
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The latest round of bickering and mudslinging between former
President Olusegun Obasanjo and incumbent Goodluck Jonathan
took a new twist when the former chose the auspicious occasion of
a CNN interview to criticise Jonathan’s approach to the Boko Haram
insurgency, he said “To deal with a group like that, you need a
carrot and stick. The carrot is finding out how to reach out to them.
When you try to reach out to them and they are not amenable to
being reached out to, you have to use the stick”.
Prior to Obasanjo’s recent comment, he had stunned his audience,
at a gathering to review the unemployment in the west African sub-
region tagged the West African Regional Conference on Youth
Employment held in Dakar, Senegal, as he fired salvos at his
protégé. The ex-President as a guest speaker predicted a
revolution was looming in Nigeria if the high rate of youth
unemployment which he put at 72 percent remains unchecked and
should the Jonathan government fail to create employment, the
attendant catastrophe would consume the elite, himself included.
Still smarting from his Dakar outburst, he continued his barrage at
Jonathan, this time around in Warri, at an event marking the fortieth
year calling to ministry in the vineyard of God of CAN President
Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, where he described the president as a weak
leader pointing to the government’s lukewarm approach to the Boko
Haram crisis and the pervading insecurity in the country that could
have been effectively tackled if decisive action had been taken by
the Jonathan administration.
November last year, President Jonathan broke his silence in a
televised media chat as he responded to Obasanjo’s prescription,
describing the military invasion (to fish out militants who killed some
security men) and brute use of force on the people of Odi as futile
as it only resulted in bloodshed and lose of innocent lives.
Not long ago, Obasanjo also took a swipe at Jonathan’s
administration for waste of the country’s foreign reserve, put at
about $35 billion in 2007. Obasanjo said, “We left what we call
excess crude, let’s build it for rainy day, up to $35 billion; within
three years, the $35 billion disappeared. Whether the money
disappeared or it was shared, the fact remains that $35 billion
disappeared from the foreign reserve I left behind in office. When
we left that money, we thought we were leaving it for the rainy day...”
Meanwhile as a strategy to checkmate Obasanjo’s overbearing
influence on the ruling Peoples Democratic Pary (PDP), loyalist to
the incumbent Jonathan have been mounting pressure on
government to petition Obasanjo to the International Criminal Court
(ICC) at the Hague on the invasion of Odi by the military which left
civilians dead, by any standard this equates to crimes against
humanity. Another ploy to tame the rampaging former president are
plans to expose some of his misdeeds during his 8-year
unimpressive tenure.
The postponement of the BoT chairman (s)election can easily be
linked to the face-off between President Goodluck Jonathan and ex-
President Olusegun Obasanjo as loyalists of both men came to a
stand-off in their bid to elect a new chairman, which interestingly
was the only agenda of the meeting. Delegates where thorn in two
minds as to whom to pick amid intense lobbying for the former
president's candidate Ahmadu Alli, a former chairman of the party,
and President Jonathan's prefered choice - the newly appointed
chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority - Tony Anenih, with the
sobriquet, 'Mr Fix It’.
As events unfolded, it became crystal clear that the battle for the
BoT chairmanship had a direct bearing with the tussle for the
Presidential ticket of the PDP in 2015 and whoever emerges as
chairman is crucial to that agenda. Jonathan’s group opposed the
election of Obasanjo's anointed candidate, Alli. His group convinced
other members that it won't augur well for Anenih to be the
chairman of NPA and BoT, as others should be given the
opportunity to serve the party. Apparently, the Jonathan camp
opposed Pro-Obasanjo’s choice of Alli, arguing that such would be
detrimental to Jonathan's second term ambition. On the other hand,
Anenih's emergence as chairman might hinder the choice of
Obasanjo's candidate for the presidential race in 2015. Therein lies
the stand-off.
The ex-President is getting tacit support from northern political
figures of PDP extraction especially those eyeing the 2015
presidential ticket. They consider his feud with Jonathan as capable
of withering his prowess and ultimately truncate Jonathan’s ambition
to contest the 2015 elections. These northerners still feel
shortchanged that the two terms of Yar’adua’s administration which
began in 2007 was not completed before Jonathan came onboard
shoving aside the zoning arrangement of the PDP. They reason
power should return to the north in 2015 and any role Mr Obasanjo
can play to rejig would be welcomed. This much Mr Obasanjo
displayed when he invited politicians from the north to the launch of
a ‘political’ mosque project. A good number of northern governors
and politicians were present at the fund-raiser at Abeokuta. They
made generous donation to the project.
Chief Obasanjo in the past was instrumental to Mr Jonathan’s
meteoric rise from a deputy governor in Bayelsa state to governor,
then vice president, acting president, substantive president and
later elected as President in the aftermath of Yar’adua’s death in
2010. The Ota farmer was peeved by his exclusion from Jonathan’s
administration as the President now prefer his kinsmen and
sycophants as members of his inner caucus rather than seeking his
benefactor’s opinion on key national issues. More so, his
disaffection with Jonathan can easily be traced to the elections in
the South-West states of Ondo, Osun and Ekiti where PDP lost to
the ACN and LP. The ex-president, famous for his ability to spin
election results is irritated by the failure of President Jonathan to
flex his presidential muscle to influence court judgments in favour of
PDP, a suggestion Jonathan turned down. Against these backdrop,
if Chief Olusegun Obasanjo now finds everything wrong with the
man he installed as president then it must be nothing more than an
agitation for the 2015 polls.
That the former president is building bridges across the country
ahead the 2015 elections and picking holes at Jonathan's
government is a strong indication that Mr Obasanjo has pitched tent
with those opposed to Jonathan running the 2015 election.
Awkwardly, the President is up against his benefactor. President.
Jonathan is fighting the battle of his political soul as he now seem to
have reneged on the promise he made to Nigerians that he won’t
seek a second term in office and Obasanjo is at the front of the
queue to stop his re-election.
In the event of Chief Obasanjo’s inability to clinch the PDP ticket for
whoever becomes his anointed candidate, his ties with the members
of the PDP who have defected, and now part of the planned merger
between the ANPP, CPC and the ACN will prove invaluable as his
anti-Jonathan rhetoric has already won him support from the north,
majority of whom are still angry at the PDP’s zoning arrangement
that was breached by Jonathan.
As the incumbent, Jonathan can swing major decisions in his favour,
he has enough resources, as some recent appointments and
contracts awarded has shown, at his disposal to deploy in a
desperate bid to ensure he returns, but he must first slug it out with
a strong northern candidate from the PDP in the primaries and
another from the possible merger of some opposition parties in the
election proper.
It is not happenstance that Obasanjo has come out unscathed from
tough political battles, ask the likes of Atiku Abubakar his former
vice President; former governor of Ogun state, Otunba Gbenga
Daniel; former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim; former Speaker
of House of Representative, Umar Gha’li Na’Abbah and a host of
others, the ex-President has always had his way in the end. He sure
wields a lot of influence politically inspite of his resignation as the
chairman of the BoT of the ruling PDP sometime ago. It has been a
herculean task replacing him as I write and now it seems incumbent
President Jonathan might be stretching his goodluck rather too far
should he decide to contest in 2015.
theophilus@ilevbare.com
http://ilevbare.com
twitter: @tilevbare
President Olusegun Obasanjo and incumbent Goodluck Jonathan
took a new twist when the former chose the auspicious occasion of
a CNN interview to criticise Jonathan’s approach to the Boko Haram
insurgency, he said “To deal with a group like that, you need a
carrot and stick. The carrot is finding out how to reach out to them.
When you try to reach out to them and they are not amenable to
being reached out to, you have to use the stick”.
Prior to Obasanjo’s recent comment, he had stunned his audience,
at a gathering to review the unemployment in the west African sub-
region tagged the West African Regional Conference on Youth
Employment held in Dakar, Senegal, as he fired salvos at his
protégé. The ex-President as a guest speaker predicted a
revolution was looming in Nigeria if the high rate of youth
unemployment which he put at 72 percent remains unchecked and
should the Jonathan government fail to create employment, the
attendant catastrophe would consume the elite, himself included.
Still smarting from his Dakar outburst, he continued his barrage at
Jonathan, this time around in Warri, at an event marking the fortieth
year calling to ministry in the vineyard of God of CAN President
Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, where he described the president as a weak
leader pointing to the government’s lukewarm approach to the Boko
Haram crisis and the pervading insecurity in the country that could
have been effectively tackled if decisive action had been taken by
the Jonathan administration.
November last year, President Jonathan broke his silence in a
televised media chat as he responded to Obasanjo’s prescription,
describing the military invasion (to fish out militants who killed some
security men) and brute use of force on the people of Odi as futile
as it only resulted in bloodshed and lose of innocent lives.
Not long ago, Obasanjo also took a swipe at Jonathan’s
administration for waste of the country’s foreign reserve, put at
about $35 billion in 2007. Obasanjo said, “We left what we call
excess crude, let’s build it for rainy day, up to $35 billion; within
three years, the $35 billion disappeared. Whether the money
disappeared or it was shared, the fact remains that $35 billion
disappeared from the foreign reserve I left behind in office. When
we left that money, we thought we were leaving it for the rainy day...”
Meanwhile as a strategy to checkmate Obasanjo’s overbearing
influence on the ruling Peoples Democratic Pary (PDP), loyalist to
the incumbent Jonathan have been mounting pressure on
government to petition Obasanjo to the International Criminal Court
(ICC) at the Hague on the invasion of Odi by the military which left
civilians dead, by any standard this equates to crimes against
humanity. Another ploy to tame the rampaging former president are
plans to expose some of his misdeeds during his 8-year
unimpressive tenure.
The postponement of the BoT chairman (s)election can easily be
linked to the face-off between President Goodluck Jonathan and ex-
President Olusegun Obasanjo as loyalists of both men came to a
stand-off in their bid to elect a new chairman, which interestingly
was the only agenda of the meeting. Delegates where thorn in two
minds as to whom to pick amid intense lobbying for the former
president's candidate Ahmadu Alli, a former chairman of the party,
and President Jonathan's prefered choice - the newly appointed
chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority - Tony Anenih, with the
sobriquet, 'Mr Fix It’.
As events unfolded, it became crystal clear that the battle for the
BoT chairmanship had a direct bearing with the tussle for the
Presidential ticket of the PDP in 2015 and whoever emerges as
chairman is crucial to that agenda. Jonathan’s group opposed the
election of Obasanjo's anointed candidate, Alli. His group convinced
other members that it won't augur well for Anenih to be the
chairman of NPA and BoT, as others should be given the
opportunity to serve the party. Apparently, the Jonathan camp
opposed Pro-Obasanjo’s choice of Alli, arguing that such would be
detrimental to Jonathan's second term ambition. On the other hand,
Anenih's emergence as chairman might hinder the choice of
Obasanjo's candidate for the presidential race in 2015. Therein lies
the stand-off.
The ex-President is getting tacit support from northern political
figures of PDP extraction especially those eyeing the 2015
presidential ticket. They consider his feud with Jonathan as capable
of withering his prowess and ultimately truncate Jonathan’s ambition
to contest the 2015 elections. These northerners still feel
shortchanged that the two terms of Yar’adua’s administration which
began in 2007 was not completed before Jonathan came onboard
shoving aside the zoning arrangement of the PDP. They reason
power should return to the north in 2015 and any role Mr Obasanjo
can play to rejig would be welcomed. This much Mr Obasanjo
displayed when he invited politicians from the north to the launch of
a ‘political’ mosque project. A good number of northern governors
and politicians were present at the fund-raiser at Abeokuta. They
made generous donation to the project.
Chief Obasanjo in the past was instrumental to Mr Jonathan’s
meteoric rise from a deputy governor in Bayelsa state to governor,
then vice president, acting president, substantive president and
later elected as President in the aftermath of Yar’adua’s death in
2010. The Ota farmer was peeved by his exclusion from Jonathan’s
administration as the President now prefer his kinsmen and
sycophants as members of his inner caucus rather than seeking his
benefactor’s opinion on key national issues. More so, his
disaffection with Jonathan can easily be traced to the elections in
the South-West states of Ondo, Osun and Ekiti where PDP lost to
the ACN and LP. The ex-president, famous for his ability to spin
election results is irritated by the failure of President Jonathan to
flex his presidential muscle to influence court judgments in favour of
PDP, a suggestion Jonathan turned down. Against these backdrop,
if Chief Olusegun Obasanjo now finds everything wrong with the
man he installed as president then it must be nothing more than an
agitation for the 2015 polls.
That the former president is building bridges across the country
ahead the 2015 elections and picking holes at Jonathan's
government is a strong indication that Mr Obasanjo has pitched tent
with those opposed to Jonathan running the 2015 election.
Awkwardly, the President is up against his benefactor. President.
Jonathan is fighting the battle of his political soul as he now seem to
have reneged on the promise he made to Nigerians that he won’t
seek a second term in office and Obasanjo is at the front of the
queue to stop his re-election.
In the event of Chief Obasanjo’s inability to clinch the PDP ticket for
whoever becomes his anointed candidate, his ties with the members
of the PDP who have defected, and now part of the planned merger
between the ANPP, CPC and the ACN will prove invaluable as his
anti-Jonathan rhetoric has already won him support from the north,
majority of whom are still angry at the PDP’s zoning arrangement
that was breached by Jonathan.
As the incumbent, Jonathan can swing major decisions in his favour,
he has enough resources, as some recent appointments and
contracts awarded has shown, at his disposal to deploy in a
desperate bid to ensure he returns, but he must first slug it out with
a strong northern candidate from the PDP in the primaries and
another from the possible merger of some opposition parties in the
election proper.
It is not happenstance that Obasanjo has come out unscathed from
tough political battles, ask the likes of Atiku Abubakar his former
vice President; former governor of Ogun state, Otunba Gbenga
Daniel; former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim; former Speaker
of House of Representative, Umar Gha’li Na’Abbah and a host of
others, the ex-President has always had his way in the end. He sure
wields a lot of influence politically inspite of his resignation as the
chairman of the BoT of the ruling PDP sometime ago. It has been a
herculean task replacing him as I write and now it seems incumbent
President Jonathan might be stretching his goodluck rather too far
should he decide to contest in 2015.
theophilus@ilevbare.com
http://ilevbare.com
twitter: @tilevbare
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